He was taking it easy there, just lifting, spreading and grading spoil to an approximate finished level for the site restoration. On rock dig, a dig cycle would take about 60 seconds from empty bucket to empty bucket. 314 foot boom, 65 cubic yard bucket.

Thanks Alistair. The weather we had at Ais Gill for the return made me wish I'd gone further north along with you. :)

@@alangilbertson8239 I was really lucky with the weather at Armathwaite. Phil Walker made some comments on my photos saying that the weather was not good at Ais Gill

So true. The UK was famous for the standard of its restoration, but recent events following the demise of mining and the companies that were in charge of it after privatisation in the mid-1990s have sullied that reputation. If you look at Google Earth again, take a line roughly eastwards from Stobswood site until it reaches the coast at Druridge Bay. Then take another line northwards for about 10km from Stobswood, across the main East Coast railway, past West Chevington to the village of Acklington, then north further to just east of Morwick Hall. Take another line from there eastwards to the sea at Low Hauxley. Almost everything within those lines reaching to the sea, with the exception of the various villages has been mined by opencast methods between the late 1950s until just a few years ago. All of that land was restored, mainly to productive agriculture and woodland, but also to a country park and several large nature reserves. It cost a lot of money to bring the final overburden to fill the final voids, but it all paid off. Unfortunately, it is all finished as an industry now and no-one gives due credit for the new landscaping.

Supposedly humans pump something like 35 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere per year. This is supposedly causing global warming and the nebulous "climate change" that we are all supposed to be scared of. The problem is CO2 has been and remains to be only 0.04% of our total atmosphere. That is right now in our air we have about 450 PPM (parts per million) of CO2 and it's not really increasing at all...even though we emit so much of it. So how is it affecting our climate then? And further more how are we all here when in Earth's history it has been as high as 7,500 PPM? The Earth didn't become Venus or otherwise be destroyed. So what is really going on? Scientist aren't telling us the whole story probably because they make too much money peddling "climate change" to care.

Exactly..Are we better off now after getting rid of this machine?

I live in Preston County WV. There were 10 active underground mines until around 2000 then that went to 2 now there's none..there is still mine able coal but the bureaucracy of getting the permits and rights to the minerals is a long process..the mine I work at now started 3 years ago but the process to open it up started about 8 years ago. It's just not easy to get anymore like it once was.

They’re starting talk about a CO2 pipeline to capture “the gas of life” and pump it deep underground. My hopes are that accurate maps will exist so that we can, after this hoax has been thoroughly debunked, find it and we can dig it back up to do its job helping feed a hungry world. Fool us once Algore……….dont try it again!

We're living in times when claims like Net Zero, carbon credits, and other eco-rackets have been idolized and will never go away. There's far too much political and financial capital locked up in The Official Narrative. They can't admit error, even if they wanted to. It would take a thousand Hercules[es] to clean out the Augean Stables of today.

That bucket was placed directly over where the dragline worked its last coal, more or less in the same position as in the opening stills in my video.

I can't remember how long it took to get out, but it took a while. With a straight run on a prepared ramp it could do it in less than a day, but it wasn't like that in reality. The dragline had to prepare its own ramp for most of the way, digging, spreading, then a dozer used to finally grade the slope. Slow going. They were fun days. I loved it and we'll never see the like in the UK again. All gone now.

Thanks Nige. Had a good trip out to the island, where the tern arrived after we'd drifted just off the shore for a while. Job done. :)

The cloud cleared just in time in the morning and the fireman appeared to start topping up the fire as the train topped the slope a couple of hundred yards south of the station. Nice timing. It was bright(ish) most of the day after that, but in the afternoon a sea fret rolled onto the shore. I had expected that the evening run would be in nice yellow slanting sunshine, but while I was driving the three miles to Alnmouth my heart sank when I saw all the mist that was hanging about the coastal belt. The light was horrible, but my big worry was getting bowled by one of the bunch of northbounds. Their timing was erratic to say the least and 44871 had gone off the RTT radar after leaving Tweedmouth loop about 15 minutes early.

Thanks. :)

And the West Country had 11, so only 2 coaches longer than the Castle.

It was a good day Nige, and Carlisle turned out better than I thought, because it was just a thrown-together last minute option. That morning I didn't have a clue about where I'd be for the afternoon, and I just made my mind up as I was driving into Carlisle after I'd come from Shap. It certainly has changed since the last time I viewed the station approach from the south end. The last time I stood on the bridge to do it was 1967, but the last time I actually saw the view was the day of the '15 Guinea Special', 11 August 1968, when after walking back to the station after being at Durran Hill watching 70013 leaving light engine for what I was convinced was the last time, I sat at the trailing end of the DMU back to Newcastle as the station receded. That was the last time I got a train from there. It's a pity I can't post the photo I took through the DMU's cab window of the trackwork, so clean, and uncluttered.

Happy days when you reminisce Alan, just a shame you couldn’t scan the photo to tag on the video.

Thanks. (Edit)The two rusty tracks running together form a link from the Cumbrian Coast line to the Tyne Valley and the Settle and Carlisle. The rusty track on the right used to be the up line from the station to the Tyne Valley to Newcastle and the Settle & Carlisle to Leeds. It's out of use as a through route now and comes to an end just a hundred yards behind the camera.

Thanks David. It's the first time I've been to Carlisle to watch the trains leaving for about 30 years I try to avoid stations if I can, and the first time since 1967 that I've stood on that bridge. It was interesting to watch and it certainly kept me busy while I was there. Almost missed the Castle running into Upperby. I was watching the Leeds line, expecting Tangmere next and the Earl sneaked up behind me, so I had to shift the tripod double quick, hence the wonky verticals. You might also notice that the empty stock reversal into the station looks a bit strange. That's because when the train started to reverse, I pressed the record button. I just didn't press it hard enough! After a couple of minutes I noticed the camera wasn't recording and I had to quickly put that right. :)

@@alangilbertson8239 Well saved - not recording when you think you are is frustrating! (Missed a shot of the Duke on the S&C once thanks to that - couldn't believe I'd (not) done it..!)

We did get word about the health emergency on board via the grapevine, and actually expected the Castle to arrive later than it did, with a real possibility that Tangmere might come up Shap first. As it was, the Castle came though, followed by Tangmere 20 minutes later. It must have closed the gap even more by the time Carlisle was reached, aided by the 47 pushing at the back. Looking at my video (and the original files), Tangmere and its 47 were coming up the bank at least 50% faster than the Earl

@@alangilbertson8239 I found out later that evening that the person in question who had suffered the heart attack had sadly died before we got back to Preston behind the Earl that evening.

Thanks Steve. First time I've stood there since the real steam days.

On the climb to Shap, it was obvious that Tangmere was going a lot quicker than 5043 and I wondered just how much difference there was. I timed both trains from the point on the video when the loco appeared in the right hand edge of the frame to the point where it reached the last overhead support. 5043 takes 83 seconds, 34067 takes 53 seconds for the same distance, over 50% faster than the Castle. That 47 on the back was making a huge difference. I knew it was working, but I was surprised at how much!

They'll still be using them.

@@alangilbertson8239 BTW my grandfather was an engine driver. Mostly in and around Glasgow. I remember as a young boy my Grandfather had just started with his first non steam engine a diesel “Blue Train”. My mom and I went to Glasgow on a train he was driving. Thankfully we took a picture.

Thanks Nige. That wind was a nightmare. We were on the lee slope of a hill and I had the mic on a separate tripod tucked low out of the wind near the ground, but the wind just pushed the sound of the train out to sea. Lucky at Alnmouth on the return because a northbound stopping Azuma that was due within a minute or two of 46115 was cancelled because of a crew shortage. Took some of the worry out of the shot. :)

Awesome footage. Right on track

:)

It just didn't give a stuff, Dave. Great bird. I was lying there photographing it for 20 minutes before I flicked the camera onto video for a few sequences.

@@alangilbertson8239 Good catch, smart bird.

Well, whoever wrote that in Wiki hasn't a clue, because dark morphs certainly do, along with smaller numbers of intermediate birds. As I say in the video, the pale morph is the most common, but each year I've been going for the autumn migration (annually since 2001apart from a break from 2020-2022) I've seen dark morphs aplenty. In fact this year, I was commenting to a well known local observer that there seemed to be more dark birds than usual, but that was just an unscientific observation, based on perception, not recording. I photographed many.